As I mentioned previously, we wanted to beef up some of our insulation in the house (add more to the attic, and blow insulation into the previously un-insulated walls), especially as the energy company paid for most of it.

Well, yesterday was that day, and all went smoothly. I haven’t made it up to the attic yet to check out the new stuff (I’ll wait until I feel comfortable stepping on a ladder again), but it is pretty clear that the exterior blow-in insulation was done - our house looks like it has chicken pox! (or polka dots, if you will)

These dots (seen in the picture on the left - click on the link for a full image) are where they drilled in 1 1/4 inch holes into the siding and cavity, and then blew in the new insulation. They then plugged the hole up, patched it, and left it (we knew this was going to happen). These were done around the entire house, just about entirely on two straight lines of siding - a lower piece and a higher one (except under windows, as you can see).

Other than looking funny, this will be easy (albeit time consuming) to finish cleaning up - the next nice day (which is supposed to be  tomorrow -  80 degrees, lasting through the weekend) - we need to lightly sand all of the holes and apply some exterior primer. Once that dries, a quick paint should fix it right up (which is why it’s really nice these are all in the same level of sidings - we’ll be able to go straight across).

The true measure of all of this, of course, will have to wait until the next winter when we see the reductions in our gas bill.

I have already felt our furnace working less, though, so that part, at least incidentally, seems to be working!

After living the past 5 years (or so) without a home phone, Joelle and I decided we really wanted one. There’s a few reasons:

• We talk independently to each others family, friends, etc… since they call our cell phones, not a shared line. We miss just being the person to answer the phone and saying “hey!” and catching up.
• Unlimited minutes, fairly cheaply (we are using T-Mobile’s Talk Forever service, which is in Seattle and Dallas only for right now - though, supposedly, it is going to go nationwide on the 14th of May. You do need to have T-Mobile for cell phone). It is unlimited minutes from home, both local and long-distance, for only $10/month, so it is much, much cheaper than using the phone service or Comcast’s service (which was the reason we went away from having a home phone in the first place - they are so expensive!)
• The unlimited minutes would have been even more important this past month with me being at home so much. It was the first time I, for one, have ever gone over minutes. This should mitigate that for the future.
• Often, it is just a lot more comfortable to talk on a normal phone. We picked up some clearance cordless phones (with extendable # of handsets) from Office Max, so we can use the phones around the house.
• Another benefit we realized is that it is sometimes hard to hear someone when they are talking on the main floor of our house, when the other person is in the basement. With our new fancy schmancy new clearance phones, we can intercom to each other. Cool :)
• I wanted a new router anyway (I’ve been using a pretty old model for testing purposes for work), and this comes with an optimized one for the service (it has VOIP, or Voice Over IP, optimization built-in). It seems to be holding up pretty well - I am impressed.

So there you have it, we are now proud owners of a new home phone number! If you want to know it (and we know who you are), shoot one of us an email.

Don’t worry - our cell phones aren’t going anywhere. This is just an added option for us…

<Warning: Anatomy Images ahead - stop reading if you don’t like seeing them - not really graphic though>

My leg pain is getting a bit better, day by day - I was actually able to walk around for about 25 minutes yesterday, along with handling a short car ride. Go steroids go! (albeit, I still can’t feel my foot at all, but I can only ask for so much, can I?). The plan is to be in the office for the first time, in a while, tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes - hopefully, I pass with flying colors. That will make me feel much better, or at least, normal!

As part of this process, I had an MRI done last Friday for 2 purposes. One was to confirm the diagnosis of the ruptured disc. The second was to provide good visuals for the radiologists who performed the epidural on me last Thursday. (For more on that, see my previous post: http://averbuch.net/2008/05/07/nervous-system-updated-and-out-of-whack/)

Since I had the MRI done at a different facility than the epidural (or my orthopedist) due to time efficiency, I was given a CD of the results to carry from place to place (doctor’s prefer to see the actual images over faxed copies, obviously). Joelle, who has never been trained on MRI reading but has much better knowledge on anatomy than I do, took a look through all of the images for me this morning and pointed out a couple that show the disc issue quite well. In the name of “there’s no privacy on the internet anymore”, I figured I might as well post them for people to see :)

A couple of notes while you are looking at my back:

• The MRI makes the body look so cartoony. It’s sort of funny looking.
• I circled the key parts in Red in both pictures.
• Click on the pictures to see the images larger.

Notice the bulging disc sticking out from the vertebrae and hitting the spinal cord. That’s my current “resting state” - even that’s not good. If you notice the other discs, they are all normally-placed - it is the one that is causing me issues.	Here’s a great shot of a “pain” period. Pretty clear that the disc is hitting spinal cord and the nerves. Ouch :)

One interesting thing about hosting your own blog is that you get access to the searches people make to find your site. Here they are in full glory… I am not quite sure what this says about me and what I write about in general - I’ll leave that up to the readers judgement!

A few notes first:

• Not all of these show averbuch.net on the first page - people seemed to click through google/yahoo/etc… listings quite a bit
• Google (and yahoo and msn) update constantly, so for some of these queries, I showed up at one time, but no more
• As an aside, the queries are 84% google, 15% yahoo, 3% MSN

Here’s the list, in order of most frequent searching

• averbuch
• passover food rules
• pesach food rules
• molly averbuch
• aha thoughts of the day
• wedding + bedikat chametz + shabbat
• south lake union trolley
• “aaron averbuch”
• “aaron and joelle”
• aaron averbuch blog
• rules chametz
• “rabbi menachem creditor”
• “passover food rules”
• 1938 vs. 2008
• averbuch room owen school
• guy forced into a women’s dress
• jewish food
• foot pain
• seattle historic house pictures
• http://averbuch.net/2008/03/30/introduci
• beth shalom chicago averbuch
• sabich recipe
• +purim +cheese +custom
• moshe averbuch florida
• mike averbuch seattle washington
• +”redmond library”
• racoon on roof
• purim drag rabbi
• averbuch 1938
• bachelor party 2
• docs google.com teampresent docid ddp4zq
• thesweetspotcafe blog
• trolley slut
• “washington university declares war agai
• averbuch realty
• averbuch reality, huntsville, al
• out of whack back and the central nervous
• aaron averbuch

(Courtesy of Wordpress.com blog stats)

Since I’ve been laid up on my back so much recently, I decided to take a little time and check out a few web 2.0 services I hadn’t yet played with and see how I thought.

• Twitter - you can find me at http://twitter.com/ahaverbuch (RSS available as well). This is strangely addicting - it’s like the facebook status updates, but much more real-time and conversational. You can also post from a bunch of different places - IM, web, facebook, cell phone, etc… (and you can follow your friends/associates postings as well). It’s weird - I know almost no one is reading it, but since I signed up yesterday, I keep wanting to post for some reason.  A few co-workers and friends are on it now, so I’ll see how the experiment goes.
• Latest posts are also embedded on the right side of http://www.averbuch.net at all times as well, and included in the FriendFeed (see below)
• FriendFeed - you can find me at http://friendfeed.com/ahaverbuch (RSS available as well). This services combines updates I make at lots of other sites into one feed for easier viewing. It also has the social aspect; I can add my friends who have FriendFeed’s (in fact, via facebook, it automatically found a bunch of them, which is sort of cool), in addition to adding “imaginary friends” if I want to track services for people who haven’t signed up. I get an uber-listing of any updates any of them make. Pretty easy to get information overload this way!
• Services I have combined so far into one feed: blog, picassaweb (pictures), facebook status, twitter, youtube favorites, Amazon wishlist, Google Reader shared items, flickr pictures, google chat notifications, linkedin updates
• This is also embedded at http://www.averbuch.net/around-the-web/ for easier viewing - it’s reachable by clicking “around the web” at the top of each page.
• It’s also embedded into my facebook profile as well - through the FriendFeed application.

Not sure if I will stick with paying too much attention to these, but it’s pretty neat how easy and seemlessly all of these different services play together, so I shouldn’t need to think about them too much. As these are getting much more press and utilization, I thought I would pass along the fact that I have signed up for them so people can track if they are interested in keeping up with what’s going on.

A couple key updates on things - one involving my nervous system, and one involving the nervous system of the house

• One of the projects we had in mind when we purchased the house was to update the electricity to modern standards; our home inspector had told us that we had nothing to worry about, but we were still about 20-25% knob and tube electricity (basically the old electricity used prior to 1930). Researching online, it’s actually relatively safe, but has a couple of problems:
  • Insurance companies don’t love it; it has a theoretical possibility of burning down if rats, etc… eat through the wiring (or if amateurs do poor repairs). Many won’t cover houses with Knob and Tube. We were able to find a bunch of companies that did, but we ended up with a company who asked us to promise that “over time” we’d clean up the electricity. Technically we did that even prior to this work - we had some general electrical cleanup done right away (paid for by sellers inspection money), and they replaced some of wires with newer, romax, wiring. But now it’s all gone, so insurance won’t be a problem in the future.
  • By code, you can’t put in new insulation on top of Knob and Tube - that’s a definite fire hazard. After seeing our gas bills for this winter, and knowing that Puget Sound Energy would cover much of the insulation work as part of their weatherization rebate program, I really wanted to beef up our attic insulation and install wall insulation on our main floor (there is none now). To do that, first though, we needed to get rid of the old wiring.
  • It doesn’t have a grounding wire, which isn’t good for computers, as they discharge static electricity through the ground wire… We were fine, as we just use some of the plugs that had been updated, but now we can use any of the plugs in the house :)
  • So now we are all up to date and good to go; the insulation work is scheduled to be done next week (it was supposed to be this week, but delayed due to my back issues….)

• My nervous system - that’s a different issue - I alluded to it in the previous post on dog parks - it’s impacted my ability to walk more than a couple of minutes, but should heal completely at some point. Can’t wait until this gets better!
  • This all started about a month ago, with some pretty acute back pain and left leg pain. After seeing my doctor, following his advice on ibuprofen and physical therapy, then steroids and lay-on-the-floor-rest, nothing was making it better - in fact, the pain moved to my right leg pretty strongly, and my right foot went numb - I haven’t felt it in a week! I saw a few other people (chiropractor, a new general physician, taking an MRI), and finally, an orthopedic specialist.
  • Turns out, I have a ruptured (or herniated) disc in my lower back, which is pinching a nerve, causing sciatica (and thus, leg and foot weakness and tingling) which has been pretty annoying to have - I miss feeling my pinky toe :)
  • Next step, along with more rest and vicodin to relieve pain, is to get an epidural steroid injection (another good info sheet can be found here) on Thursday, hoping this helps… the goal is to release pressure on the back, and hope that the disc starts to heal. Often, people feel better within 3 days - praying this is true!
  • Things I have learned:
    • Working from home is productive and useful for a day or two. After a couple of days, it’s really hard to keep up with what’s going on in the office as so much occurs outside the scope of emails (and phone calls are hard to hold too many meetings by…)
      • Everyone at work has been super great with everything. thanks all!
    • I need more minutes on my cell phone plan (or else get a home phone - we are considering T-Mobile’s Talk Forever service, as we have T-Mobile’s family plan for our cell service). Given the amount of calls to work and to doctors, we’re running out of our monthly allotment!
    • First time I’ve ever called into the on-call doctor over a weekend (as opposed to going into ER). They got back to us pretty quickly to get us vicodin, which was great. What was funny was that since my (new) general family doctor is part of a family clinic that serves both adults and children, they sent my request over to an adult physician and to Children’s Hospital. So we got a call back from a doctor at Children’s at first, and she stated: “I don’t know how to help you. You’re 29!”
      Luckily, the adult physician also called back and was able to get me the pain-meds I needed!
    • There is very little good on television, no matter how many channels we get!
    • I have a temporary disabled parking permit - haven’t actually used it too much yet, but it’s helpful - of course, since I can’t drive right now, it is just as easy to have Joelle drop me off at the door and park in a standard spot, but it’s a nice fallback to have in case we need to go anywhere.
    • Passover seders are a lot tougher when you have to stand up the whole time! (sitting hurts…)
    • Joelle is fantastic - nothing new here - but she’s taken care of everything for me (and for Molly) this past month - it has been a lot of work, I know. Thank you honey!

On a follow-up to my last post, here’s a good link to a write-up of Seattle dog parks: http://www.nwsource.com/recreation/match-your-pup-right-local-leash-area

And a good map of all of them: http://www.coladog.org/olas/COLOR_MAP_MUDBAY07.pdf

We’ve tried Golden Gardens and Woodland Park, as I stated previously. Northgate’s is also really close. Once I can walk well again (more shortly), we’ll have to try that one out…

But more importantly: Come on Lower Kinnear Park - get the dog park built there already! (I just sent an email to Citizens for Off-leash Areas to find out more on the status of this - the last public info is circa 2006).

Molly just got dropped off from her weekly visit to the Bone-A-Fide ranch, and I’ve never seen her with a bigger smile on her face. She loves that place for doggie daycare!

We checked out some of the in-city options (Barking Lounge, Downtown Dog Lounge, etc…), but got such a better feeling when we headed out to Snohomish to do our visit with Bone-A-Fide; it is a huge open area (as opposed to indoors), the dogs all looked like they were playing the full time (as opposed to some play, some crated, as the others have due to numbers of dogs there), and even better - they do pickups and drop offs, along with having boarding available.

Ian, the driver, says Molly is really cute during the whole experience.

She loves running around in the van - there are 12 dogs together on the ride up (which takes a half-hour) - and is one of the best of the bunch - she stares out the window, then plays, then goes back to staring out the window - just like at home.

At the ranch, she’s apparently quite a digger (which we’ve also seen at the local dog parks - we’ve gone to Golden Gardens and Woodland Park) - she loves digging up a pile, than jumping back trying to catch the dirt - I’ll have to get a video the next time she does this at the dog park. She’s apparently quite the teacher, and gets other dogs excited to start digging as well! It’s pretty cute :)

On the way back, she tends to sleep a bunch, according to Ian, but as soon as they turn into Queen Anne, Molly perks up, seemingly saying: “I know this place!” and gets pretty excited as they approach the house.

She also runs around a bunch while she’s there - which explains why she just ran into the house, came up to me, licked my face, and immediately jumped on her bed to go to sleep! As they say on the Animal Planet shows - “A tired dog is a happy dog!”

Highly recommend any Seattle dog owners check out this place.

Now that it’s the last day of Passover, it is time to start thinking about post-Passover food (though can’t have any of it until after 9:30 pm tonight, at least in Seattle. Pizza will be awaiting!)

While we were in Israel recently, I spent about 100% of the time eating Kosher meat, as it is readily available there at restaurants, but not so much in Seattle. As I was discussing with my friend Carrie last night, “when you are in Israel, it’s all meat, all the time. Even got to have the Kosher Burger King!” (and yes, my Whopper Harif, i.e. Spicy Whopper, was fantastic!)

One of the few non-meat meals I had was a wonderful Iraqi Jewish sandwich called Sabich which is, apparently, quickly turning into a prime falafel alternative throughout the country. I had been doing some research into how to make it (as it is a bit too obscure for the Seattle dining scene). I had posted an article up on Chowhound asking for help, but hadn’t gotten around to making it, since I had run out of time before Passover.

At the same time, I had mentioned it to my friend Michael (same guy I had posted about when discussing Men’s Cooking and Syrian Jewish foods), and while he had never heard of it or tried it before, he agreed it sounded fantastic (especially as he is vegetarian). He took the opportunity on Saturday night to make some, and put together a fantastic write-up, including a great recipe (and I got a shout-out! Nice!)

As this is a fantastic dish, I am excited to follow his recipe and eat! I’ll let you know how it goes. For now, check out http://www.herbivoracious.com/2008/04/recipe-sabich-.html for more.

Molly again. As I’ve gotten to know Aaron and Joelle better, I’ve let them see some of my favorite things to do. I’d thought I’d share them with you as well. For all the pictures, feel free to click on them for a larger version.

• I love to stand up and look out the window at what’s going on outside. But, I don’t like letting them take a picture of me doing it - I jump down as soon as I hear the camera.. So here’s Aaron showing you how it’s done:

 

• I really like playing with other dogs, but so far, they’ve only allowed Ronin and Shay into the house. That’s okay. I like them!

• We got a fun rug. It sort of looks like it’s outside, so I like to sniff around in it!

• Most importantly, I don’t like chewing on things I shouldn’t. But I do love shoes. I just think they should be moved around the house. So I pick them up and put them where I want them, usually on my bed or on my blanket. It’s a fun game to play with the humans: “Find your shoes!”